JS Lecture Series - Natan Sznaider - Hannah Arendt and the Dilemmas of Jewish Politics: The Case of Jewish Cultural Reconstruction

Type: 
Lecture
Audience: 
Open to the Public
Building: 
Nador u. 9, Faculty Tower
Room: 
FT 609
Academic Area: 
Tuesday, October 14, 2014 - 6:00pm
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Date: 
Tuesday, October 14, 2014 - 6:00pm to 8:00pm

 

The Central European University

Jewish Studies Program

 

cordially invites you to a lecture by

 

Natan Sznaider

Academic College of Tel-Aviv, Israel

 

 

Hannah Arendt and the Dilemmas of Jewish Politics: The Case of Jewish Cultural Reconstruction

 

My presentation tries to come to terms with Jewish politics right after the Holocaust.  Usually, the understanding of Jewish politics after World War II is framed around the Jewish state of Israel and its meaning. This presentation will provide another angle, connecting Jewish particular politics with current concerns about cosmopolitan politics like human rights, genocide, and international law.

I pay especially attention to Hannah Arendt’s practical work for “Jewish Cultural Reconstruction” (JCR). This organization was founded 1944 in order to re-define legally and morally the concept of Jewish cultural property, and to deal on a practical level with heirless Jewish cultural property stolen by the Nazis and liberated by the Allies. By looking more closely at the goals and struggles of this organization I will be able to evoke the urgency of Jewish politics that started immediately in 1945, and try to explain how the various positions of Jewish intellectuals shaped Jewish and Israeli politics in the years to come.

Tuesday, October 14 at 6 p.m.

In Faculty Tower - 609

 

 

 

Natan Sznaider is Full Professor of Sociology at the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo in Israel. His research interests over the past few years have centered on giving a sociological account of processes of trauma and victimhood as well as on the Jewish political theory of Hannah Arendt. His publications include Jewish Memory and the Cosmopolitan Order (2011) and The Compassionate Temperament: Care and Cruelty in Modern Society (2000). He co-authored (with Daniel Levy)Human Rights and Memory (2009) and Erinnerung im Globalen Zeitalter: Der Holocaust (2001), which was expanded and translated into English as The Holocaust and Memory in the Global Age(2006).

 

A reception will follow